> Dunno about the parent commenter, but I personally interpret the concept as having a hidden representation of self that is continually tended to

I don't see why an LLM could not have a sense of identity or personality while it's evaluating a specific prompt, or even change self awareness while evaluating a prompt since many outputs model a back and forth conversation. My point is that without a mechanistic model of what "self awareness" means, we have no way of truly evaluating such questions, we're just hand waving vague intuitions about what it could mean.

Sure, but then such a model is not going to make itself. People pitting their vague intuitions is how such models eventually form. I'd also push back regarding that my comment would have been handwavey or without mechanistic elements, even if it was on the whole informal.

This is kind of also the reason e.g. the HN site guidelines are worded the way they are. Regrettably, forums naturally yield themselves to tit for tat type exchanges, but there's really no reason one could not bounce such vague intuitions off of another. I do not have to be right or wrong, and you don't either. Admittedly difficult when its some intensely contentious topic.

If a mechanistic model existed, there would also be no reason to talk about this in the first place. There'd be nothing to discuss, you'd be simply told how a given model characterizes from this perspective on the model cards.